Do something!

Ben Wildsmith

Can you remember the last time a government did something that positively affected your life?

I bow to no man in my embittered disappointment at Tony Blair’s period in office, but the minimum wage is, we must agree, an actual thing that exists in the life of the nation.

We put crosses in boxes and the upshot was that we knew the actual pittance that we could expect for rolling out of bed in the morning and resisting the temptation to learn Japanese or go fishing.

Since then, actual government action seems to have been limited to stopping people from doing things.

So, you’ll feel the hand of government on you if you are protesting, or making comments online, or vaping, or going on strike, or driving, or marrying an overseas partner but that hand only arrests, it never propels us forward.

Politicians are fond of the term ‘freedom’. They all claim to be the conduit through which it flows to us poor, enslaved grunts. In the 21^st century, however, emphasis has shifted. We are offered freedom from all sorts of ills: terrorism, knife crime, racism, wokery, ‘red tape’, the license fee…

We are not promised the freedom to anything. It is as if governmental surrender to financial interests is so complete that even to suggest a positive, democratic change in how the country runs is to risk punishment.

Lamentable quality

Government has been reduced to a policing authority for those who benefit from the status quo. So, it’s fine when restrictive, as described above, but oversteps its authority if it seeks to be proactive.

This isn’t helped, of course, by the lamentable quality of the politicians we have. We have allowed Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt to be installed by the markets as CEO and CFO of the UK without so much as an inquiry of the electorate.

Our quiescence towards this astonishingly undemocratic state of affairs flows from general acceptance that their predecessors, Truss and Kwarteng, were tŵp.

Now that we are in recession, we’ll see just how hemmed in government has become. In election year, a Tory Prime Minister ought to be cutting taxes. It’s as traditional as the Swingometer and pencils on strings. Having P45’d Mad Lizzie for doing just that, though, are the markets going to tolerate a futile vote-buying exercise by Rishi Sunak?

Absurdity

There is a world of difference, though, between being prevented from doing something stupid and being so cautious that you refuse to do anything at all. Sir Keir Starmer’s reversal of Labour’s commitment to invest in green technology is cautiousness stretched into absurdity.

The markets love capital investment. It’s kind of what they do: look for what’s going on in the world and try to back the best projects. Starmer, having been warned not to waste his pocket money on sweets, is now too frit to pay for his lunch.

There’s not much we can all agree on politically, but I doubt anybody is going through their week in the UK thinking, everything seems to be fine, let’s just carry on as we are.

The timidity of policy offers from the two main parties is jarringly at odds with the lived experience of everyone they represent. The markets have called time on Thatcherite economics, but Labour seems unable to grasp it. Can they even imagine such a development?

Reform UK, the current vessel for Nigel Farage Thought, is offering an increase to 20% in the Income Tax threshold. Now, that’s a thing, isn’t it? Actual money in your pocket is a pretty powerful lure. Independence for Wales and Scotland is also a thing, especially when nobody is offering to reform the UK at all.

The major parties need to offer something tangible or face extinction. It is a damning indictment of our system that they are so insulated from the experience of voters that both parties should think continuity candidates make sense at this election.

Do something, fix the potholes, anything. If they don’t someone else will.

Flags & Bones by Ben Wildsmith is available to order from Cambria Books